From Fragmented Support to Finance Pathways

What if the biggest barrier to finance is not a lack of support, but the way support is organized?

Too often, support for farmer organizations, cooperatives and agri SMEs is a maze instead of a pathway. Ahead of AgriGRADE’s upcoming webinar, this article explores how more connected support can create clearer routes toward stronger businesses, better markets and access to finance.

A fragmented system

Within agricultural development, farmer organizations, cooperatives and agri SMEs are often supported by different projects, NGOs, programs and service providers. Most initiatives are well intended and many deliver useful support. But they are often temporary and each comes with its own approach.

A farmer organization may be assessed by one project, trained by another, linked to a buyer by a third, and asked for different information by a bank, donor or government program. Each activity may make sense on its own. Together, they do not always create a clear path toward stronger business performance, better market access or finance.

The problem is not that people are not working hard. The problem is that the system is too fragmented.

A recent learning brief by Aceli Africa makes this clear. Based on its experience with technical assistance to 700 African agri SMEs, Aceli shows that technical assistance is often donor funded, fragmented and poorly connected to finance. This makes it harder for support to help businesses access and manage loans, and improve long term performance.

An urgent lesson

Aceli’s main lesson is simple: technical assistance delivers more value when it is designed around what lenders and enterprises actually use for decisions.

This lesson is becoming more urgent. Official Development Assistance is under pressure. The OECD projects a further decline in ODA in 2025, after a 9 percent drop in 2024, with least developed countries and sub Saharan Africa likely to be hit hardest. CONCORD Europe also reports that 17 EU Member States cut their ODA in 2025.

At the same time, food systems are facing more shocks. Wageningen University and Research recently warned that the war in Iran could push up food prices through fertilizer markets. For many African farmers, higher fertilizer prices may mean using less fertilizer, producing less food and earning less income.

Scarcer public resources, higher input prices and more volatile markets make fragmentation less affordable. Separate assessments, trainings, data systems and reporting processes are no longer only inefficient. They are becoming too expensive and too slow for the reality farmer organizations and agri SMEs are facing.

Support is too generic

A recent SCOPEinsight and ISF report for Argidius reaches a similar conclusion for business development services for farmer organizations. It describes a BDS market that is fragmented, donor driven and inefficient:

• Providers often work in silos.
• Financial institutions do not always trust BDS related data.
• Funders often pay for activities, such as trainings delivered, rather than results, such as stronger businesses, better contracts or improved access to finance.

One result is that support often becomes too generic. Yet farmer organizations and agri SMEs are at very different stages. Some first benefit from strengthening the basics, while others are closer to market or finance readiness and benefit from support linked to buyers, contracts or lenders.

A good BDS system becomes more effective when it recognizes these differences and offers the right support at the right time.

A clear pathway

From an AgriGRADE perspective, this is the shift that can unlock better results. The focus is no longer only on assessing and strengthening farmer organizations, but on organizing a clearer pathway from professionalization to market participation and finance readiness.

Assessment, technical support, market development and access to finance work better when they are part of one connected approach, supported by:

• shared standards;
• comparable data;
• clear partner roles;
• a common understanding of what markets and financial institutions require.

Such a pathway starts with a common language. Partners can achieve more when they work with shared standards, comparable data and a clear understanding of what market actors and financial institutions require.

Each partner takes a role

This is also one of the key lessons from Aceli Africa: technical assistance becomes more useful when it is designed around the information, capabilities and performance improvements that lenders and enterprises use for real decisions.

Different partners can then support different parts of the pathway:

• one partner may focus on assessment;
• another may provide coaching;
• another may connect farmer organizations to buyers;
• a financial institution may define what information is needed for a loan.

The value comes when these steps are aligned, so that technical assistance does not stand on its own, but prepares organizations for concrete market and finance opportunities.

For different actors, this has practical implications:

• For practitioners, support delivers more value when it is linked to real business needs, not only to general training topics.
• For financial institutions, data about farmer organizations becomes more useful when it is relevant, comparable and trustworthy.
• For cooperative developers, professionalization creates more value when it leads to better business performance.
• For buyers, shared information can provide better insight into supplier capacity.
• For governments and funders, better coordination can improve the use of limited resources.

What lies ahead?

Together, the Aceli Africa and ISF and SCOPEinsight reports point to a wider lesson for the sector: support becomes more effective when it is tailored to the stage of each organization and judged by whether it improves business performance, market readiness and access to appropriate finance.

There are still real challenges:

• Banks do not automatically trust external scores.
• Partners share data more easily when rules are clear.
• Cost sharing works better when it is realistic.
• Funding based on results works better when it takes into account that outcomes also depend on weather, prices and markets.

These issues cannot be solved by one model, platform or organization.

The future of BDS will not be built by more isolated projects. It will be built by connecting the right actors around shared standards, aligned incentives and the right information at the right moment.

This is the challenge for the sector, and the focus of the upcoming AgriGRADE webinar: how can we move from fragmented support to finance pathways that are practical, trusted and useful for farmer organizations, agri SMEs, buyers, financial institutions, governments and funders?

The webinar will take place on May 5th 2026. Registration is open here.

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